Authors Creating the Universe of Elite: Dangerous: Allen Farr
Feature
Allen Farr's short story, A Game of Death, if one of the pieces of fiction that will help enliven the universe of Elite: Dangerous.
My existing knowledge of the Elite universe was enough to allow me write the basic story. The finer details supplied by Frontier have hopefully helped immerse the story in the Elite Universe. By finer detail I mean small things such as knowing that Imperial citizens have a flamboyant dress sense and have an honour code. Overall the information supplied was sufficiently detailed and more than I could ever use in a short story.
I guess the unanswered questions are also small things such as how a ship’s shields and armour function, what effects do different weapons have on them etc. Some authors have put place holders in their stories for this kind of unknown. I have just ploughed ahead and written these details in how I think they are likely to work. If I have to change them later it shouldn’t be an issue.
What’s different about writing a story based on a game compared to your previous work?
As an avid fan of pen and paper roleplaying games, my previous work has always been based on existing game worlds, albeit not computer games, so writing within the constraints of fictional canon that isn’t always complete is the norm. I have already written for FASA’s Earthdawn RPG, and I’m currently writing for two new upcoming games, Cosmothea (http://www.qtgames.com/) a blended genre RPG, and DeadStopWalking RPG (http://deadstopwalking.webs.com/), a game of urban horror set in post war 1920’s. It’s writing an actual story that is different from what I normally do. I normally write adventure scenarios and source material for roleplaying games. These products rarely have any character dialogue and are mostly descriptive. So I’ve never written anything where characters have to actually have to interact and talk to each other. This was probably my greatest worry of the entire project. So far, other than struggling to remember to put my punctuation inside the speech marks, it hasn’t been the worry I thought it would be.
Frontier is planning to include aspects of the fiction into the game. Do you have many ideas of what details of your novel you might want to see in the game? Are you willing to reveal some of them at this point?
I have two locations and an organisation in my story that I would love to see appear in the game. Without giving too much away, the main location is a dense asteroid belt with more going on than first meets the eye. As I was describing the many unique features of the belt in the story, I was visualising how it might look in game. The asteroid belt is a location that would make for many hours of exploration, challenge the player’s piloting skills to the max, and it would be a great setting and backdrop for combat and rescue missions. There is plenty to discover, riches to be had and the scenery would make for stunning visuals.
The other location is more of a visual scene where a gas giant is being consumed by its parent star. With the detail going into making the planets look real in Elite: Dangerous I think it would look spectacular. The organisation (I won’t give anything away on that) would also make an interesting feature in the game and could be used as a great source for all manner of missions. Whether Frontier will include any of these or any of the characters or named ships I don’t have the slightest idea, but I reckon people will go looking for locations in many of the Elite: Dangerous books regardless. I know I will.
What are the next steps in your writing process until your story is delivered onto the readers’ hands?
My latest draft is about to come face to face with a professional editor for the first time. I’ve had various experienced writers edit my material before, but never someone that does it professionally for a living. So that is going to be a new and hopefully positive experience. It’s likely there will be some rewriting in the near future before it gets anywhere near the readers. I’m also hoping for more feedback from the other authors. Those that have read it so far have commented on mostly different aspects of the story, so its sometimes difficult to gauge if story elements are a bit dubious or if certain things just boil down to an individual’s taste. From previous experience, when multiple people comment on the same thing you can be sure it needs looking at. At some point Frontier will have to approve the story, and how much more work will be involved after that is an unknown at this time.
Thank you for your time and in-depth answers, Allen! Anyone wanting to find out more about the story and Allen as a writer should visit the official Tales from the Frontier site.